Natural healing: Trauma on the nervous system, part one

We have been discussing how trauma can affect the body’s ability to heal.

The next two weeks we will specifically looking at the effects of trauma on the nervous system.

First, trauma and pain are relayed to the brain through a system in the nervous system called the anterior lateral system. In the absence of painful stimulus, this part of the nervous system works to coordinate blood supply to the working parts of the body, and drives the brain's perception of the need for circulation.

To illustrate, if I bend over to pick up my shoes, the nervous system will fire through this anterior lateral system to bring blood to my back and leg muscles which are having to work harder as I bend over. As well as increasing overall all heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration to provide the fuel necessary to support mare vigorous muscle activation.

Remember, this anterior lateral also carries pain, but hopefully movement does not cause you pain, and this is because your body has an internal buffer system to remove our conscious perception of this system.

However, in the cause of sufficient trauma, pain bypasses this buffer and we most definitely become aware of this pain system. Overall this is good, because if we did not feel pain we would likely hurt our self to a much greater degree.

The problem is this, increased firing of the pain system directly interferes with something called proprioception. This is a fancy way of saying how our brain knows where we are in space. As pain increases, particularly over a long period of time, the brain begins to have problems knowing where that body part is in space.

Take for example, chronic shoulder pain. Chronic shoulder pain will interfere with the body’s ability to know where the shoulder is in space, and this makes controlling the movement of the shoulder less efficient. We don’t know what we don’t know, meaning we don’t consciously perceive the loss of the joint position sense. What we do perceive is a lack of coordination that often shows itself as grinding or popping in the joint or muscles surrounding the joint.

Joints in the proper position generally don’t grind or pop, but as we lose our joint position sense we experience what is called joint position errors. These position errors are not only irritating, but dramatically increase the incidence of injury.

So, what do you do about it? First, we need to understand that it is the nerves firing from muscles and joints that give our brain it’s perception of joint position. These same nerves also active the pain buffering system that keeps the pain signals from reaching the brain. These nerves are like muscles, the more you use them the better they work. So the cure is very simple, activate the nerves coming from joints and muscles. There are lots of ways to do this, chiropractic adjustment, massage, acupuncture, rehab, stretching, and exercise all fire these pathways. As these muscle and joint nerves are fired, they become more efficient at blocking pain and help restore the brains ability to know where a joint is in space, decreasing joint position errors.

Dr. Joseph Fraley D.C. is the owner of Alpha Omega Chiropractic at 106 Alpine Village Rd. Contact him at 575-258-5999.